


Baggage

by TheLostMaximoff



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 09:08:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9314870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLostMaximoff/pseuds/TheLostMaximoff
Summary: Everyone carries their own baggage, but they never have to carry it alone.





	

Caitlin Snow looks around at the interior of the airport and feels her stomach lurch with nervousness. A mixture of desperation, self-loathing, and God only knows what else churns inside of her and she doesn’t know what to do. Her plan is to run away screaming. Running away is, after all, what brings her to the airport in the first place. She doesn’t see any other way out of her current state. There is no cure for what ails her and she knows that the longer she stays, the more dangerous she becomes. She thinks it’s better this way, like ripping off a band-aid all in one go. She was always nervous about doing it that way because she was afraid of the pain that accompanied it. She’s never liked pain.

Caitlin braces herself, summoning whatever courage she has left within her, and drags her luggage behind her as she walks around the lobby. She doesn’t have a ticket yet because she hadn’t thought that far in advance. She stares at the giant board behind the counter with its electronic numbers and letters. She waits for a destination to speak to her because anywhere but Central City will do. She just wants to start over again. She just wants to let go of everything that she’s been carrying for far too long. It’s weighed her down all this time and she’s made her decision. It’s time to ditch the excess baggage.

Caitlin hates herself for doing this, for being a coward. She’s always been one and she knows it. Her natural instinct is to withdraw and run away from her problems. She has so many of them now, the power inhibitors around her wrists a constant reminder of her biggest problem to date. She tells herself that she will no longer be a burden to her friends. They will no longer have to shoulder the labor of looking after her. It’s her turn to carry that and she knows that they will be happy in the end. They will miss her of course but it’s better this way. It’s better that she not drag them down with her into the murky depths of her blossoming madness. She stares at the board, trying to will her brain to make a decision about where to go. Her life had direction once. She had a plan and a purpose. Now all she has is too much baggage that she can’t carry.

Caitlin decides that a destination can wait. She sits in the lobby and tries to gather her courage. She tries to tell herself that this is for the best. The others will be fine with time. Their shoulders will no longer sag under the weight of her sadness. Their spines will no longer bend awkwardly as they keep her from toppling over the edge of reason. They will no longer need her and that is what bothers her. Caitlin needs to be needed. It’s something so ingrained into her very being that she cannot remove it. She needs to feel useful. She needs to contribute to the group. She needs that emotional validation that has eluded her for so very long. She’s not getting it with the others, not anymore. That’s why she knows it’s time to go.

Caitlin stares at the board from her seat and tries to decide. She needs some place nice and warm. She needs some place remote. An island sounds nice, she thinks. She can get a hotel room by the beach and soak up the sun. Most importantly, she can start over. She packed light for this trip, choosing to leave behind a lot of things. She thinks about the concept of leaving things behind and her eyes set on a young couple playing with their child. She thinks that could have been her and Ronnie in another life on another Earth. She always dreamed of being a better mother than her own mother. She always swore that she wouldn’t turn cold on her children the way her mother had with her. She supposes that isn’t very fair of her but life hasn’t been very fair to her. She gets it now, the way that her mother felt all those years ago when Caitlin’s father died. She wonders if her mother ever felt like running away. Maybe she did and she just found a different way to escape.

Caitlin is so lost in her own thoughts and the agonizing decision of where to run to that she doesn’t notice someone sit down next to her. She does notice, however, when that someone takes her by the hand and softly squeezes it. She doesn’t even have to turn and face him to know who it is. It’s weird how she’s memorized Cisco’s touch and the way it conveys his feelings. She knows she’s going to miss it when she’s gone. Out of all her friends, she will miss him the most.

“Bit of friendly advice,” says Cisco. "You should probably not look up ticket prices on the STAR Labs computer when you’re trying to leave without anyone finding out about it.“

"So you’re here to talk me out of it then?” She says it like it’s a dare, like she wants him to talk her down from this ledge like he always has. "I told all of you before that I was going to have to leave soon. You should have seen this coming.“

"Yeah but you could’ve at least said goodbye.”

Caitlin notices the anger in his tone and she feels like a child who has been caught breaking the rules. She’s not doing anything wrong though. On the contrary, she’s doing the right thing. It’s not her fault that he can’t see it that way. His powers aren’t killing him inside. His powers aren’t twisting his mind into a pretzel. He’s not the one losing himself. She is and that feeling gets stronger every day.

“I was going to wait until I bought a ticket,” she tries to explain although she doesn’t know why. "I had already planned out what to say but … I knew that I couldn’t do it.“

"So you just want to go away and never speak to any of us ever again?” questions Cisco and the anger only increases. "I’m not talking about saying goodbye to the others. I’m not talking about saying goodbye to Barry or Wally or even HR. I’m talking about saying goodbye to me, to your best friend who has always been there for you. Haven’t I earned that, Caitlin?“

Caitlin is silent for a moment as she tries to process the emotions she feels. When she finally speaks, it’s barely above a whisper and he has to strain to hear it properly. "I knew that if I tried to say goodbye to you, I couldn’t go through with it at all.”

“What exactly is this, Caitlin? A cry for help?”

“I just want to start over,” says Caitlin. "Why can’t you let me do this? You know that this is safer than having me around. You know what I’m capable of. I can just go be someone else’s problem.“

Cisco thinks about her words and tries to get the anger out of his heart. He knows they both have carried so many things inside of them, more than they were ever meant to hold. All the grief, the pain, the love, all of it settled inside of them long ago and it just keeps growing all the time. It never stops and they can never rest because there’s always more weight, more pressure, more everything to carry. There will always be more baggage. He sees in her eyes how desperately she wants to run from all of it. So he waits until he has removed the anger from his voice before he speaks to her again.

"I guess I’ll just have to come with you then,” he decides. “Where do you want to go?”

“Don’t try this reverse psychology bullshit with me, Cisco.”

Cisco knows she only curses when she’s either very serious or very drunk. When he first started working with her, he thought she was straight from a Disney movie with her G-rated swearing and impeccably beautiful looks. One night, he went out to a bar with her and Ronnie. He realized that she actually curses like a sailor once you get her loosened up. At first, he thought she was all sunshine and happiness and the warmth of her spirit was a welcomed thing. He’s seen little glimpses behind that mask though. He knows that she’s suffering under such tremendous weight now. He only ever wants to provide her with the leverage she needs to remove that weight.

“I’m being serious,” he tells her. "You pick the place, I’ll go home and pack, and we’ll get the tickets right here. Where do you want to start over?“

"Tahiti.” She knows he will never go through with it so it doesn’t matter what she says. "I always wanted to go there with Ronnie but …“

Cisco remembers fondly how madly in love Caitlin was with Ronnie. She was at her happiest with him and she has been at her most broken without him. He can see she’s been carrying that grief inside of her for a long time, far longer than she should have. It’s the same thing he’s doing with Dante.

"You and me can go there,” he decides. "We’ll just walk away from all this. We’ll just lay on the beach and drink booze.“

Caitlin searches his eyes for some trace of deception but can’t find any. She’s never seen him so resolute about anything, or at least not anything as serious as this is. What she sees in him is the same thing she sees in herself. For a second, she thinks maybe this is right. Maybe their fight is over. Maybe they can finally throw off the burdens that are crushing them.

"What about Barry and the others?” She’s the one having doubts now because it’s too good to be true.

“He’s got Wally and Iris and Joe. Maybe he doesn’t need us anymore.” Cisco knows how crippling insecurity can be. They both know that it can eat you alive if you let it. “We don’t owe Central City anything. It’s taken enough from us already. Maybe it’s time to ditch all of it and save ourselves the pain. We’re just science nerds, Caitlin. We were never meant for things like speed gods and super-villains from another Earth.”

She wants to agree with him. She wants to tell him that she will run away with him to the ends of this Earth and any Earth beyond it. She wants to be free of all of this but she can’t. He knows it because he feels it too. They stay for each other because they have carried each other through every terrible thing this world can conjure up. Burdens are meant to be shared. The more hands involved in the lifting, the lighter the load.

“You know that we can’t leave now,” she tells him. "You know there’s still so much left to do.“

"Yeah,” he agrees. "I guess it was worth a shot. Tahiti’s probably lousy anyway.“

"Maybe someday we’ll go and find out together,” decides Caitlin. “I think we could both use a vacation after everything we’ve been through.”

“Yeah, a vacation would be pretty nice.” Cisco gets up from his seat and holds out his hand.

Caitlin takes it without a second thought and lets him pull her up to her feet. She turns and looks at the board behind the counter one last time. It looks so promising with its offers of lands uncharted and new beginnings. Running away doesn’t solve things though. The sad truth that she has learned is that you carry your baggage with you wherever you go. One place is just as good as the next, except for one thing. Central City is the only place in the world that has a Cisco Ramon and that makes all the difference. Burdens are meant to be shared and she will gladly share hers with him no matter the risks. She knows that he would do the exact same thing.


End file.
